holdmypoodle | it's morphin time

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it's morphin time

It's not even game day, they're so far from seeing a game day yet. The training, the schooling, Jesus, he never expected there to be so much to learn. But he'd never been more set on anything in his life, some kind of ingrained thing after everything went fuck-faced and south. It's times like these, times like back in compounds and chains, when he thinks about his mom, just turn your life around, and driving off in that goddamn car --

Jesse was a cagey, slight bit of a thing at best, maybe not the tops of his classes - particularly the fighting portions - but what he lacked in schooling, he made up for with determination, some sick kind of need to help further, to set his record straight, get some of that red out of his ledger. He's already spent long enough trying the alternative, lasted about three months on the south Cali wall before he decided it wasn't enough.

That was a year ago. he was now when he was suited up and flexing his fingers nervously next to him. The simulations were one thing, and Lord knew he'd done more than well at those, naerly perfect record. He thought fast on his feet, rudimentary. It was probably the only reason he was standing here right now, picking at the casing around him, brittle and under-laden with kevlar.

The thing is that there's nobody else in the world he'd think of doing this with.

Jesse trusted Finch inherently. Something about them, they'd clicked right off the bat, neighbors in the same hall of the station; they hit it off and it didn't take them long to realize they weren't going to find a better choice than this. That doesn't mean he hasn't heard his fair share of warnings about the drift, reasonable worry from Pentecost and all, but he was being lent the chance. He hadn't told Finch yet. He supposed he was going to find out in about ten minutes.

"You shouldn't worry so much, man," he joshes in Finch's direction, nudging him in the arm. In actuality, it's Jesse that's a bit pale right now, nervous, keeps fidgeting with his gloves and subtly pinching at his nose. "Gonna give yourself an ulcer." He cracks a well-natured grin.

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And in return, there's nobody else that Jesse Finch would think of doing this with.

For whatever reason, the two of them just make sense. They're close, like brothers, they work well off each other - for every quick-on-his-feet decision that Pinkman makes, Finch is right behind him with a backup plan, a broader view. They know each other's style pretty damn intimately, but still, it's true. Everybody warns the recruits about the first drift, about how difficult it can get. And Jesse knows, he's anticipating it. It's just that his head has always been a pretty private place. It's the last safe haven for him.

But he has to let Pinkman in. Even if he trusts Pinkman with his life, even if he'd die for the guy, do anything - there's just this small bit of apprehension in his chest. There's shit nobody should have to see in the back of his head, shit that still lurks and rears it's angry head when he's stressed or nervous.

It manifests now, with them standing and waiting, Pinkman nudging him with a grin, and Jesse is easy enough about it, rolling his head to the side to offer Pinkman a lazy grin of his own. He looks calm enough, looks in control of himself, but someone like Pinkman will know exactly how nervous Jesse is based on the way he keeps fussing with his hair.

He'd be chewing on his fingers if they weren't gloved.

"Yeah, yeah," Finch hums, making a face at Pinkman. "Try not t'pee yourself afore we get in there, now." Like they're not both about ready to puke. Pinkman gets a wink, too, something teasing and good natured as always. "Hope you're ready for all the gay sex, Jess, m'gonna do my best t'pull it to the front."

"Dude." Jesse's nose immediately wrinkles, a flattened kind of expression on his face. "I get a single dick in there, you pull some kinda Tyler Durden, movie-splicin' shit on me, you don't wanna know what you're gonna get back." Like fifty-two-year-olds in tight whities. He misses a lot, but that's not one of those things.

The two of them make quite a pair, all of their nervous tics out to play. Jesse playing with his gloves, Finch mussing up his hair, Jesse's hand coasting over his buzzed head. The helmet's tucked under his free arm just as he's grasping anxiously at the back of his neck. It's Stacker, hands folded behind his back, stately. It's almost time. Jesse can hear her booting up from up here, has to resist the urge to lean over the railing to get a good look.

"I have every piece of paperwork that suggests this is in no way a good idea," Stacker says, that same stern voice he uses, the military man one that demanded your attention. Jesse's fingers fiddle nervously with his helmet before Stacker punches in a door code, scans a thumbprint and lets them into the ship bay, holding the door wide.

"Prove me wrong."

It makes Jesse laugh, anyway, makes him settle down just a little. They know each other so well that it's reassuring. Teasing each other back and forth is calming, normal, and Jesse's a little more prepared by the time that Stacker comes in, a little more ready to face this. Little more ready to let Jesse into his head.

Prove Stacker wrong. "Gladly," Jesse hums right back at the stern older man, flashing him a grin. Life tip number one: if you look like you know what you're doing, other people will assume that you do.

Their jaeger's a beauty, though. It's so goddamn pretty, and Jesse wishes he'd been able to be more involved in putting her together. He wanted to cover it in spray paint, but it's not up to standard. Can't be too creative in the military. The nervous tics fade a little when Jesse's strapped in, hooked to the machine he's spent the last year of his life preparing to be attached to.

He glances over at Pinkman, taking a deep breath. "... Y'ready?"

He still distinctly remembers his first time here, seeing the jaegers up close and personal. Giant fucking robots, of course he was a fan, of course he asked about three hundred questions of the pilots already here. It's not that he's already so jaded - after all, he's seen them, but that doesn't mean he's been inside of one before - but his hands are sweating inside his gloves. Finch is acting like everything's a-okay. Jesse suddenly feels like he's going to be sick.

And yet he stays strapped into the thing.

"Can't lose yourself in it," he offers in favor of Finch's question, skipping over the answer to it - probably a good indicator that it's a 'no'. "Ain't gonna get sucked in, yo, you can't go rabbit-holed." He's not sure who the advice is for, Finch or himself. But there's a technician making sure everything's strapped, the helmet visors lower, and then there's counting.

"Neural handshake in three -- "

Definitely going to be sick.

" -- two -- "

There's just shit that no soul left on the market knows, none except Stacker Pentecost, the price of business.

" -- one -- "

And there's no 'go'. The machine flips and Jesse's head slams back into the headrest as that swirl of memories suddenly starts to mix and twist and meld like nothing he's ever felt before.

Can't lose yourself in it. Easier said than done.

Three, two, one - and it almost hurts with how sharp and sudden it is. It's like hitting the gas pedal, like being literally thrown headfirst into a solid wall, and Jesse can't help the gasp he lets out as everything mixes and melds and presses together uncomfortably. It's so fucking much at once, his and Pinkman's memories, he can feel and hear and taste the memories, like he's living them, and it steals the air right out of his lungs.

A little boy with sweaty, matted black hair sits in a hospital bed too big for him, hooked to a machine, awake and alone - a teenager with that same mop of hair grimaces as a tattoo needle digs into his arm and then a different needle altogether, an overwhelming feeling of peace. The same little boy, holding out a piece of paper to an older man and getting knocked to the floor for his efforts, a different older man, with a priest's collar and a warm, kind smile offering his a hand and a feeling of hope -- writhing and retching and blurrily staring at the ceiling during the worst comedown of his life.

It's a fucking lot, and it's not even the tip of the iceberg, it's not all, because it's not just his own head, it's Pinkman's too.

It's easy enough, when you focus your mind on it, and he does. He keeps his thoughts light, the forefront of his mind, all these flashes: there's playing with the neighbor's dog, there's karate practice, there's a thirteen-year-old Jesse cradling a baby brother in his arms. It's nice when it starts from the top. It's nice when there's not a scream that cuts through it all, not his own.

He was supposed to be prepared for this. Steel your mind and all that, he was supposed to stay with the drift, not fight it, but that was before he was hands and knees over Jane's very dead body, heels of his hands slamming into her chest. The room beer-stained, pizza boxes thrown about, used needles littering the beside tables. Come on, come on.

There's a voice somewhere, warning the two of them that they're falling out of alignment. Jesse's not even sure he hears it.

He's bad at focusing, he's bad at keeping it light, it just slips out. Everything kind of just starts to fall to pieces, and then there's a room. An apartment, Jesse registers, a bed and Pinkman doing compressions, expression distraught. Jesse loses track of what's going on, eyes focusing and unfocusing, and then - a warning, get back on track from somewhere over his head. Jesse digs his fingers into his palms, pay attention, a nasty voice snaps from the back of his mind, and Jesse lets out a whoosh of breath.

It's like time sort of slows. Everything's happening in a few seconds, a minute, but Jesse sees Pinkman and the girl and he moves towards them. Doesn't even hesitate to get onto the bed, reaches out, but doesn't touch.

"Jesse," Finch says insistently. "C'mon, man, c'mon - you gotta focus, s'just a memory, hey. Hey!" He can almost hear the warning bells and alarms going off. Don't look. Don't look at her.

It's not even the worst he has and he knows it, can feel these other sharp edges of his memories trying to make their way in - he brushes each off, forcefully, one by one, focuses on his compressions even as there's vomit trailing out of the corner of her mouth, that white and glossy look to her eyes.

In the end, it's Finch's voice that yanks him out of it, like he's just remembering where he is, what they're doing. There's some mumble about a few points of stabilization as Jesse leaps up and off the bed as though he's been burned. Or as if, you know, he was just straddling a dead body.

They had to get out of here, and the drift was more than happy to take them, a swirl of blue and more flashes that don't make any sense out of context - an upside down cigarette, the smell of freshly baked apple pie, the heat and a loud, loud bang of a gun being discharged at point blank range, and Jesse's hands grip the levers next to him tightly, white-knuckling as he wraps his head around it.

First drift's the toughest. Both and everything at once. "Focus, I'm focusing," he spits back angrily as he storms his way into the next room, straight into an unfamiliar memory of his own.

Pause. Fast forward.

Time speeds back up and Jesse is overwhelmed. His head's not a mess, it never has been, it's organized and compartmentalized, there's shit he is allowed to remember and shit he isn't. More blue, bloody knuckles and the buzzing sound of a tattoo parlor, a very distinct laugh, familiar for Finch, something that wrenches into his spine. It's a kind sound and it echoes in the background for a moment as something angrier, more hostile fights its way to the front.

First drift is the toughest, and this is one of the things Jesse doesn't let himself think about. He gets stuck, eyes on the floor as he picks up glass with his bare fingers, shakes and tries to swallow his panic. The room spins and a bottle flies from across the room, shatters against the wall and rains down on Finch and he presses against the wall in fear, bright and sharp and threatening to drag him right back under. Stabilization, sure, for just a few seconds, and now the connection is shaking again. He doesn't think about this, he blocks it out, and when it comes up, it's malignant, latches its claws in. The monster under his bed.

"It was you," Says the man across the room, smelling strongly of whiskey. He doesn't slur, doesn't waver, just speaks calmly, swigs from the glass. "Pick it all up. She's not around to clean it anymore, so it's your job. Every last piece."

It's happening again, he's chasing --

The glass crunches under Jesse's boots as he takes a few steps inward, watches his partner in crime crumble into a pile without a spine, Finch curling inward on himself as he dutifully starts picking up glass. For a moment, Jesse wonders if he can interact with anything in the drift itself. His feet sure feel solid on the ground.

"Jesse," he starts off first, warningly, ignoring the other guy in the room - his dad, isn't it, this asshole who's blaming Finch for something he didn't even do; it makes Jesse's jaw square and his memories get all jagged at the edges again. The drift twists, the jingle of chains in the background before Jesse sharply shakes his head. "Finchy-boy."

He's crouching down in front of him, both hands held up in placation, just as he probably is outside of the neurological part of this as well. Difficult to tell, when they're getting buried so deep in this handshake. "He can't hurt you. He can't hit you, he can't nothin'. Just try 'em." It's just a memory. It's just a memory. They're all just memories. It doesn't matter how cold and stiff that flesh felt beneath his fingertips, even through the t-shirt.

"Finchy, we gotta go, we're gonna get stuck," he says, urgency in his voice. He holds out a hand for Finch to take.

They're just memories. They have to go.

"Do you know why she isn't here to clean up your mess?" The man across the room drawls, and Jesse flinches, both here and on the outside, because somewhere he knows how this ends, he knows because he remembers how it hurt far worse than the glass in his fingertips. "You. She isn't here because of you."

He can't hurt you, it's just a memory, and Jesse can't, he hears the chains and smells gunpowder, the taste of a snack cake in his mouth and a shiver in the seam of the memory as Pinkman talks to him. Pinkman's in front of him, crouched, offering his hand, and Finch looks past him, stares at his father as he stands up and makes his way over.

Stuck, he's stuck. He's trapped, and his breathing gets short. He can't quite remember what he was doing before all of this - it's on the tip of his tongue, he just needs a little push.

He's not even sure he could, much as he wants to. It's a memory. That's the thing about the drift, about memories, is they're just thoughts, and thoughts can wound and they can wound deep but they can't actually and actively kill you, hurt you, physically. It means Jesse can't interfere, he can't shove the other man back like he wants to, he can't fully get Finch's attention while he's like this --

There's a rush of those memories again, bleeding into each other once again, twisting together like snakes as Jesse leans back and opens a door to outside of this kitchen. It leads right into another house, nice, upper middle class. There's a boy on the floor with a firetruck, and Jesse starts to make his way inside, distinctively not taking in the sights around him - they'll stick and he'll get that ill feeling in his stomach again, homesick.

"Come on." So he just waves his hand in tries to usher Finch into the house as though he's a child. Or a golden retriever, maybe. Either way, Jesse's got an overwhelming protective need - it quashes out some of his own anxieties to make way for Finch's. He's scared shitless of this man - because Finch is scared shitless of this man - and out is better. "C'mon!!"

It's the wave of protection that he senses. That's what knocks him out of the memory, it's what gets him to blink and actually look at Pinkman. C'mon.

For a second, he stays where he is, looks back and forth between the angry drunken man and his partner - and then sucks in a sharp breath and stands. Out. He gets out, he runs out of the room, and the man vanishes, the memory fades. Finch jolts out of the haze and stares at Pinkman, both in the memories and out, gradually takes back control of his own head.

It's something he needs. He needs that control. "I - okay," Finch says, shakily, but he's there, he's present, and the sounds of shattered glass and the fright he'd felt gets buried, pushed back. "F-fuck, fuck, I'm - okay. M'here." The blue swirls around them, but it's getting easier, he's finding it easier to navigate.

The levels are evening out in the slightest, starting to calm and climb back up in percentage. They must be, nobody's done an override yet. Back in the jaeger, Jesse's still entirely stiffened, hands balled and head pressed back tight and away. Too tensed, too nervous about what else they're going to start stumbling in across.

He was expecting intense. He wasn't expecting this intense.

"Just stay with me, man," Jesse says out loud, and it echoes the same in the drift, everything blue and clouded. It should be clearing, but they can't seem to coincide on a similar point yet, not a good one. Sometimes it takes a while, takes some time to find that comfortable spot for pilots to share.

As it is now, the kid looks unbothered while he's playing, only intermittently glancing up towards the kitchen. It could almost be Jesse at that age if it wasn't for his voice floating in from the other room. There's shouting, an unfamiliar woman and a man, and in his mind, Jesse grabs for Finch's arm and starts to tug him away. He doesn't have to hear a word to know what his mother and father are arguing about - or, rather, who.

"Just let it carry you, man, don't fight it," he repeats himself again, shakes out his shoulders in his bindings back in the ship to try to loosen up. "Try it again, see where we're gonna end up."

He doesn't want to see it - they're in each other's heads but that doesn't mean that Jesse needs to see every little bit of Pinkman's memories. Pinkman doesn't want him to see this and Jesse doesn't go chasing it down, just nods firmly, takes a deep breath in and out of the drift, and keeps going. Just stay together. Jesse grabs back, holds onto Pinkman's forearm - it's bracing, and it's not holding hands. Just familiar, just a reassurance for the both of them.

This time, he just lets himself sort of relax, closes his eyes, and the room shifts and slides and there's the blue haze all around them. They end up in a tiny apartment's living room, music playing in the background, soft and down low. There's the sound of someone in the kitchen. But it's calming. Relaxing.

Jesse knows where he is, and he relaxes very, very slowly. It's not so much a specific memory as a state of being, but he knows where he is, and he looks at Pinkman. Does this fit? He's not sure.

"Stay focused," Jesse repeats, settling down.

There's something that's a bit disastrous, putting two incredibly traumatized people into the same headspace, combining their thoughts into one and hoping for the best. There was good reason why Stacker was so hesitant on the matter, why they were currently running on disabled weapons, cannons, just basic motion and equipment training.

Jesse still feels it, even as the environment relaxes. He knows Finch can feel it too, that anxiety all up and down his spine. It means he hasn't opened himself yet, not fully, and their compatibility's never going to match up properly if they don't both. It's a two-way street.

With a deep breath, he lets the apartment calm him, shaking out his hands and padding his way in. "Yo, what the hell is this place?"

Finch can feel it, and he's hoping that this'll help. Somehow. That Pinkman will settle down the rest of the way. Right now, Finch concentrates on being as calming as he can. Exudes that reassurance, lets Pinkman into this part of his head fully. It's safe, here, that's what he knows. Safe from people, bullets, anything.

Jesse looks up at Pinkman, standing in the middle of the room, letting it soak through him. "A friend's apartment. Used t'be the only safe place I had, yeah? Like sanctuary." There's whistling, from the kitchen, but this is a suspended memory, almost, just a flash of a moment. The game's not progressing, there's not a kitchen, really, it's just what he remembers. "Deep breath, man. Gotta calm down the rest of the way."

Easier said than done.

It might be Finch's sanctuary, but it's not Jesse's. He can feel that calming energy start to seep into his own, the two mingling and at some kind of odds as the tranquility starts trying to overbear the hysterics. Jesse breathes slowly and walks the room, trying to keep everything in check.

But he doesn't know where this is, he doesn't know what's going on. And he doesn't know who else is in here, and he points towards the kitchen - not as agitated anymore, but a little apprehensive. "Who's that?" he demands, and even starts to make his way over to there. Calming down. Yeah. Much easier said than done. But there's a good reason Jesse Pinkman has his quirks. He doesn't leave his food or drinks out for anyone to touch, he's most comfortable with his back to a wall, and he can count on one hand the amount of people he actually trusts.

Finch is one of them. But this drift is all sagging sideways. Jesse's thoughts are stressing the neural handshake and he knows it.

Maybe Finch doesn't get why, doesn't know exactly all the reasons for the quirks, just knows that they exist and that he accommodates them when he can. He figures he'll probably know the reasons by the end of this. But for now, Jesse doesn't think too hard on it. He can hold up his half now that he's in a place that he can rely on to keep his head clear. Following Pinkman across the room, Finch lets his shoulders relax.

"S'just my friend," Jesse tells him, voice gentle. "S'my friend Gerard, he's a priest, alright? It's his apartment." For a second he debates on how much he wants to tell Pinkman, hesitating. "He used t'let me crash here after shit happened. He took care'a me - probably would'a taken good care'a you, too, if you'da let him."

That sends a ripple through the memory, a sharp chord of sadness in an otherwise peaceful environment, and Jesse sighs, rubbing at his face. "Hey, c'mon. You wanna look at me? We gotta pull this back together."

The thing about being in Finch's head is that Jesse doesn't even necessarily have to ask, nor does Finch have to tell him much. He thinks of something and it enters the forefront of his mind, becomes more readily accessible to the drift and Jesse just gets it as though the feelings were his own.

So the calm that Finch associates with this place, it's a start. It's helpful, it's relaxing, and there's something about his friend being a priest that -- sets him at ease. He hasn't been a Christian, not for a long, long time, not since he was ten and being dragged into church in his Sunday's best. He hadn't looked back since, tried his hand at atheism. But you spend a few months down in a cage, nobody to talk to but the guy who takes malicious pleasure in putting hot fireplace pokers to your shoulder blades, you start to seek out other people to talk to. So yeah, he prays sometimes.

There's a flash of that again, clinking chains and a dog run; Jesse's connection veers sharply out of whack before he lets himself sink slowly onto the couch, concentrating on his breathing to calm himself down.

Outside the drift, his eyes are squeezed shut tight.

"Safe haven, right?" he finally speaks up, glancing around the place. "Good idea." At least enough to get them calmed. A priest, a priest. He has to repeat it over again, run his hands along the pillows and try to keep his shoulders from being ratcheted up and around his ears. There's still those flashes; a dank cell, sharp black eyes, a bucket of piss, but each one that flares up, Jesse quashes immediately.

He knows he has to open himself completely for this connection to happen. He's just not entirely sure he wants to.

Safe haven. It's safe and Jesse needs Pinkman to let him in. It's hard, he knows. There's shit Jesse doesn't want Pinkman to see ever - the worst of the times that he faced his father, the time he nearly died from an overdose, things that Pinkman doesn't need to see. But they can't hide shit from each other. Not here. They can't work together if they're not completely in sync.

Each flash sets Jesse on edge, though, just the little bits he catches. There isn't much he can do other than settle down on the couch next to Pinkman and make sure the place is as calm as he can possibly make it. Just keep concentrating on this, on the way he used to make him feel, the only place he could ever sleep deeply in the whole city.

"You gotta let me in the rest of the way," Finch says, eyes on Pinkman. Outside of the memory, he's got his eyes closed too, but his breathing's steady, at least. "You gotta let me in, or this ain't gonna work, Jess, c'mon. S'alright. It's gonna be fine."

Whatever it is, Jesse can handle it. Pinkman just needs to trust him.

It comes on like a gunshot, a sharp bang that cuts through the peaceful quiet of the room.

It's funny, the more he tries not to think about it, the further it crawls into the forefront of his mind. Flashes, just flashes, of a body crumpling to the ground, Jesse screaming through the gag in his mouth, a couple of hands yanking him back inside the car seat hard as he tries to press his face against the window. A hand in his hair, trying to be soothing, but each touch is like a shudder down his spine.

But that's not it; the blue cascades and Jesse's spitting blood onto the ground. "I don't have--" he says with half of his face to pulp, and that's when a blonde man is lifting a pair of pliers out of a bag on the floor - cement, ten foot tall walls, a caged top over the thing as Jesse scrambles backwards into a corner. "I can't--" Overhead, an older man watches, smoking idly at a cigarette.

"Take his teeth and he won't be able to tell us jack shit," he warns, and the blonde shakes his head, he's not stupid.

"It's not for his teeth," he replies with a shrug, as if he's discussing his choice of dinner rather than snapping the needle-nose pliers open and closed and approaching the dirty, bleeding, bruised and broken Jesse in the corner. His shirt's hanging loose at the collar, torn, burns at his collarbones. Jesse starts holding up his hands in warning, no no no, he keeps saying, and there's this ache that enters the bridge between him and Finch like he's not sure how much longer he can hold onto this.

"Do what you gotta," says the man up top, flicks the cigarette butt down into the cage before he leaves. His own trash can, holds the worst of their garbage. The blonde grasps for one of Jesse's conveniently extended wrists and Jesse swings his other arm wide. So does the jaeger, narrowly missing a slam into the wall of its port. One of Jesse's fingernails is ripped right out of its bed and Jesse screams.

There's something distant in the corner of his mind, the actuality, someone's shouting about a RABIT and Jesse already knows he's failed, inside and out. The jaeger's hand curls into a fist, another nail gets torn right out of its place as he's calmly asked what else he knows, I'm real sorry, just gotta be thorough, you know?

Outside, inside the cockpit, Jesse's hands start to claw at his helmet as if he might pull it off while it's still strapped on.

It's all right. It's going to be fine. It's just a memory. His breath picks up, hyperventilating as the blonde grasps for his pinky finger and snaps it sharply back. Jesse's chasing it, lost in it.

It hurts right down to his fucking bones, watching, listening.

It's just a memory but Jesse feels it like it's his own, feels every bit of misery and fright and base animal instinct that Pinkman's cycling through, flinches away from the sharp yank of the pliers, and okay, no, he can't - he has to -- he doesn't know what, but he's going to fix it somehow. In the cockpit, Jesse's almost even trying to get himself out of the restraints to comfort his partner, but it's not easy and it's only half hearted anyway. No, he's trying from inside the memory. It's alright, give him a second.

Finch can't punch the blonde kid, as much as he'd like - he can't get that involved, he can't actually change the stuff that's going on because it's a memory. But he can press forward, drop down next to Pinkman and get his hands on him. That's what's real, here. He holds at Pinkman's arm tightly.

"Hey," Jesse says sharply. No, no, just let him try, don't disconnect them yet. The arm that Jesse's controlling twitches with the effort. "Pinkman. Jesse, come on, look. Look at me, it ain't real. I know it feels that way but you gotta look at me. M'right here, yeah? I weren't here when this happened, that's different, right? S'not real."

The blonde - 'Todd', it seems like, if Jesse's begging is anything to go by - sighs as Jesse starts to slump to the ground, clutching his hand off and away from Todd. He doesn't hear Finch, he can't even acknowledge his company yet. He's way the fuck in Wonderland, and Todd's kicking at one of Jesse's feet.

"Get up."

Tears cut through the blood and grime on Jesse's face, even out of the eye that's nearly swollen shut. It's then that Todd reaches down to grasp one of the chains holding Jesse in place - this one's attached to a choke chain, that Todd jerks sharply to get Jesse up and on his knees. "Get up." Jesse's words are caught in a strangled sound; the crying instantly stops.

Todd shakes his head and crouches down in front of him again, where Jesse's hands and feet are bound with chains and cuffs. "You been real patient, I appreciate that," Todd's telling him, calm as anything. "You just gotta tell us anything -- "

"I don't -- know anything, I don't -- "

Jesse gets another yank on the chain for cutting Todd off, and it's longer this time, tight, and his eyes roll over to see Finch by his side for the first time. His eyes flicker, and register that he's there.

And Finch sees that flicker. He takes advantage of it.

Jesse moves, tries to position himself so he's in front of Todd, make sure that Pinkman's looking at him and not his tormentor. He extends his hands, expression open, and he's trying to bring his own quiet, relaxing memories back, trying to let the feelings seep back in. It's hard because this memory is strong, right in front of them, loud and angry, but he tries.

"That's right, c'mon. Look, it's me," Jesse says, firmly but soothing as he can. "This ain't happening right now. S'a memory. He can't hurt you again, yeah? He ain't around, he can't hurt you anymore. Stay with me. Keep your eyes on me, y'wanna grab my hand? We can go, right now."

Anything to get him away from this Todd motherfucker.

It's difficult to concentrate, not when he has that chain pulled tight around his neck - Todd takes the opportunity to be temporarily malicious, holding taut so that Jesse can't breathe, can barely see straight. His mouth opens in gasps, his fingers scrabbling at the chain around his neck, and Todd holds it just about up and until the red drains entirely from his face, when black's starting to edge itself around the edges of his vision and --

Jesse falls onto all fours with a sharp and ragged inhale, his nails curling against the ground, which hurts with so many of them missing from their beds but it's instinctive, it's terrified. He's scared to invoke Todd's sadistic side, do something against the rules and get himself worse than he has now. But Todd stands tall and steps forward, through Finch - he's just a memory, just a memory - and it's that one flaw in the system that has Jesse suddenly and desperately grasping his hand onto Finch's hand.

In an instant, they've flicked over again, blue edging at the sides of his vision as the drift bleeds through to another location, another memory, maybe.

It's a church.

Tall, vaulted ceilings, beautiful stained glass lying against the walls, rows of pews and a stage at the front, empty, with a podium and a few instruments set up on the platform. Christian rock music or some shit. Jesse's sitting very quietly on one of the pews, his arms folded on the wood in front of him. His fingers are bandaged, a bleed over from the last memory, as well as the purpling bruise around his neck, but they're out of that cage. Out of Todd's grasp. Sort of. He still seems to be grasping onto some of it in his mind, judging by the wounds.

He sits there quietly, staring up at the giant cross at the front of the room. He doesn't say a word.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

it's morphin time

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